


The Disturbance

by orphan_account



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, game of thrones
Genre: Emotional Abuse, Mental Torture, Not really that sexual or violent, Ostracizing, Shunning, Threats of torture, Verbal Humiliation, and just sad, but still lots of verbal and emotional abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 11:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4018132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a routine Dreadfort dinner party, Theon is reminded just how unloved and unwanted he really is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Disturbance

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bitch, guys. Sorry.  
> My homegirl Acerbitas wasn't around to co-author this, as she was feeling sick. It won't be as good without her magic. Feel better!

That night, there was a dinner at the Dreadfort. Several visiting lords and ladies were in attendance, all friends of the North, and all enemies of the traitor Theon Turncloak. Their hatred was apparent in the way their faces curled with disgust as he hobbled around the table, in the way they violently jerked away from him when he knelt down to fill the goblets.

Also present in the dining hall, of course, were the sadistic pack of Ramsay’s friends known as the Bastard’s Boys; Lady Sansa’s ladies in waiting; and, of course, the Lady Sansa and Lord Ramsay Bolton himself, watching him coldly at the front of the table. Lord Roose was gone on a trip with his advisors to negotiate the plans against Stannis’s troops. Without him there, the jokes and banter soared to levels of crudeness that even his old self (the self he could not think of, it made his throat squeeze up with pain) would not have dreamed of. Lady Sansa once would have run from the room blushing, but now she simply looked down into her wine, her face devoid of all emotion, and gulped it down as though she was drinking blood. His blood.

“Reek,” snapped Ramsay suddenly.The entire hall went silent.

He looked up, heart pounding. “Y---Yes, milord?”

Ramsay gave him a mocking grin. “Please, pray tell, Reek. Why are all my Lady’s handmaidens waiting with empty goblets?”

Theon glanced again toward their table. Four cold Northern girls sat at a low end of the table with crossed arms and unfriendly eyes. Theon had tried to do his duty earlier, he had tried to fill the wine, but each girl had adamantly shook her head in repulsion when he had tried to draw near. Their ringleader, the fierce brunette Miranda, had muttered “Go away, you disgusting rat, none of us want you here.” The other girls had snickered cruelly after her, and Theon, unwanted, had given a meek nod and retreated to the shadows.

“Don’t make me ask again, Reek.” This time, his tone was dangerous.

Theon looked up. His eyes crossed to Lady Sansa, and her eyes held angry vengeance. He remembered her words from the previous night: “If I could do what Ramsay did to you, I would.” He hung his head lower.

“I’m sorry, my lord. I tried to offer, but they did not want more wine.”

Ramsay’s eyes glittered with malice. “I told you earlier, you dimwit creature, that your sole duty tonight was to fill all the wine goblets. Is that too hard? Would you rather lick clean all the chamber pots instead?” Everyone in the hall tittered.

“No, milord.” His voice shook. “I’m sorry, milord.”

“Don’t blame these fine serving girls for your own ineptitude,” Ramsay went on. “And even if they did refuse you, would it matter? They are serving girls. I am the Warden of the North. Whose word is more important?”

All eyes were on him,and all mouths were silent.

“Your word, milord.”

“Good.” Ramsay smiled. “Pour the wine.”

Theon lifted the bottle of red wine and limped over to the table. Two fingers had been flayed last week for his bride’s refusal to take his arm. The raw flesh against the damp cold of the wine bottle was agonizing, and he fought to not let the tears spring from his eyes.

“Disgusting,” snapped Miranda as he reached them. “He stinks of dog shit and old come. What kind of depravity do you get up to in those kennels, you hideous creature?”  
The other girls giggled. They all leaned over, blocking their wine glasses so Theon couldn’t reach them.

He stood there helplessly, the wine bottle causing more agony each second.

“Please, mi’ladies,” he said weakly, shooting an imploring glance toward Ramsay and then back again. “If you please, I must needs pour your wine.”

They all looked at him with disdain. 

“You ‘must needs’ leave our presence,” Miranda said. “None of us want to look at you. None of us want you to exist. In fact, your existence in the world is what makes it such a cold, horrid place.”

The entire hallway broke out into laughter. The ladies lifted their glasses to Miranda. Some of the men hooted.

Theon flinched back. His head hung, neck chafed by the bit of black cloth tied around his neck like the kennel cur he was. He started to convulse, and couldn’t stop. 

He clutched the wine harder in his weeping, bleeding hands, not sure what to do with it.

“Please….”

One of the Bastard’s Boys stood up. Yellow Dick, or Damon--Theon could never remember their names.

“Enough is enough,” the man said with an irritated sigh. For once, Theon’s heart began to lift. But not for long.

“I just want to tell my joke about the Dornishman’s Wife,” Damon went on, “But no one in the hall is listening, thanks to your cur self causing such a commotion.”

Theon’s lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ll be sorry for more than that, after we’re through with you,” Damon snapped. “Why do you think you have the right to draw all the attention to your pathetic self?”

Theon shook his head and backed away. “I’m sorry.”

Inside, he was shaking like a leaf. If he left, he would be punished for not refilling the girls’ wine. If he filled the wine, he would cause more of a ruckus and draw the wrath of Damon. What was he supposed to do?

But then he remembered Ramsay’s words. The words of his lord were the most important--the only commands he must truly fear.

He moved towards the ladies’ table again. As he did, they all begin to scream: loud, mocking, shrieking cries of revulsion, as though a spider or cockroach had crawled onto the table. Theon ignored them, filling the wine anyway despite the cacophany in his ears, until each glass was full of the blood-like liquid and he was free from the dreadful command at last.

He shrunk back again, hoping he could make it to the kitchen in peace, where maybe he could grab some leftover scraps and hide unnoticed for a few hours.

But Ramsay’s voice stopped him first.

“What did you learn today, Reek?” he asked. The hall was silent once more. All eyes were on Theon.

“I…” he licked his dry lips, and began again. “I must always obey your commands, my lord.”

Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And...and your commands come first, milord. Your word holds true above all others’.”

Ramsay rolled his eyes and sighed with growing annoyance. 

“This is basic truth, my creature. I need not tell you water is wet, or snow is white. What were you really, truly reminded of today, Reek?”

Theon wanted to punch the walls. Anger rose up in him, the anger of frustration but also the anger that no matter what he did would always lead to agony.

“I don’t know, milord. Please.”

Ramsay’s expression turned to condescending disgust. When he spoke, it was a condescending coo, the way he would mock a simpleton child.

“How did my lady’s handmaidens react to you, Reek?”

Theon wanted to lie down and sleep forever. He couldn’t see where this was going, but he was worn out and weary and weak, so very weak.

“They were repulsed by me, my lord.” As they should be, he thought. I am nothing. Please let me go, please.

“Why?” Ramsay was having fun now, and the rest of the hall had no love for him.

“Because…” Theon’s brain swam. There could be a million answers Ramsay might want to hear, for why he was disgusting.

“Did they want you, Reek?”

“No milord.”

Ramsay snickered. “Then what does that make you?”

Theon thought for a minute.

“Unwanted, my lord.” he finally said. “No one wants me.”

Ramsay smiled. “Good.”

Theon felt relief to finally have won this round of Ramsay’s sick game, but he felt a new hollowness, too. He suddenly wished he was dead. It would be an end to pain.

“And,” Ramsay went on, “If no one wants you, what are you really worth in the world?”

Theon felt duller, like he was sinking into deep waters. The hall simmered with suppressed laughter. Would this never end?

“Nothing milord.”

Ramsay shook his head.

“Worse than nothing. As Miranda said, you plague the world. It will be a better place with you gone.”

Then kill me, he thought. Kill me and let it end.

“Yes milord.”

“Get outside,” Ramsay suddenly commanded.

Theon stole a glance out the door. A blizzard came down in a white flurry, and even the horses had to be brought in out of the cold.  
Did Ramsay want to kill him after all? Death by cold would not be so bad. It would be a sweet kindness, a death of dignity, no agonizing humiliations in the dungeons. He could close his eyes and pretend that his mother was holding him, that he had hope of being loved and feeling human once again.

“Yes, my lord.” He edged towards the door.

“Someone will be out shortly to deal with you,” Ramsay said. “To punish you for the disturbance you caused. And when you’re done, you better be in my chambers tonight. I don’t care if you’re missing half your limbs to frostbite, you will be there or else back to the saltire you go, do you understand?”

Theon nodded meekly. “Yes my lord.”

So he meant not to kill him. Theon’s heart sank.

The Bastards’ Boys stood up, all five of them, bloodlust in their eyes. They followed him to the door.

Sansa’s unforgiving eyes watched them go. And behind her, behind them all, Ramsay watched. Ramsay plotted.


End file.
